CNN: Bush's SotU to Focus on Energy
Posted by Prof. Goose on January 30, 2006 - 4:15am
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: energy, george w. bush, oil, oil prices, peak oil, state of the union [list all tags]
The politicization of energy--a trend that, if our understanding of the situation is even somewhat accurate here at TOD, will become more and more prevalent in the politics of the US and the world--will likely reach a new level when President Bush takes the floor of the House of Representatives in his State of the Union speech this week.
Trying to calm anxieties about soaring energy costs, President Bush is using his State of the Union address this week to focus on a package of energy of proposals aimed at bringing fuel-saving technologies out of the lab and into use.(link) Yes, well, we've already given the last energy bill a rough treatment here at TOD (use the search box in right sidebar), but we might as well tear this speech apart too, eh?
The only way ro decrease energy costs is to decrease the amount of travel costs for the energy itself....Local energy production and conservation.
This fact however will always be ignored by our present leadership.
This post does not show up on the front page. You can only get to it though the 2 posts on either side of it.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_energy.html
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
http://tinyurl.com/4xau3
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Which means ETHANOL instead of conservation.
Every economist worth his salt has advocated major increases in the gasoline (and jet fuel, etc.) tax for at least the past forty years. In the U.S., political logic has defeated economic logic when it comes to taxes on petroleum products; for historical and geological and social and demographic reasons European countries tax gasoline heavily, and this is one reason (though probably not the main reason) for their good to excellent systems of public transportation. Political constraints are just as real and just as limiting as the the laws of thermodynamics--alas. Look what happened to hapless President Carter when he advocated a tax of five cents a gallon on gasoline. No greater mistake in analysis can be made than to neglect political constraints.
I've been pushing for higher energy taxes since the 1973 embargo, but now that we're in the shadow of the peak, we can be sure that the market will give us all the incentive we could ask for in terms of volatile and higher prices. At this late date we need to focus on non-oil sources, including ethanol.
One of the prime arguments for ethanol subsidies is not that ethanol currently provides a killer bang-per-buck (in terms of EROEI), but that we need to establish the infrastructure for it in advance of the Big Breakthroughs in cellulosic ethanol production. Currently, there are about 5 million E85-compatible vehicles on the road in the US (including one in my garage); we need that number to be higher, and we also need to see ethanol much more widely available at the consumer level (so people like me can actually buy it). Tax breaks, such as the package proposed by NY State gov. Pataki, can do a lot to jump start that chicken-and-egg cycle.
Also, GM will be launching a major flex fuel (E85) ad campaign during the upcoming Olympics. It seems GM has decided on a short-term tactic of promoting ethanol to reduce the perceived oil-per-mile consumption of their vehicles.
How depressing. I'd like to believe ethanol could be part of the solution - after all it's working well in Brazil - but since GM is by definition wrong on everything, that's pretty much a death knell for ethanol.
This is obviously marketing aimed at the rich, environmentally-concious, SUV-driving, pseudo-"aware," left-leaning GOP wannabe. - "Y'know, my Explorer is an E84." "Oh yeah, well my HUMMER is E83 that uses EROEI 1.01 sugar-cane instead of corn."
Let me be clear. 15% corn in your fuel tank is not going to save us. GM should be ridiculed for this approach.
It won't work. E85 is a lie.
The real problems are:
And really, the fact that people are still arguing about it shows it's not a solution. If it is energy-positive, it's not by much.
Right now, we're living a Paris Hilton-like life, supported by Mother Nature's trust fund. Only it's running out soon, and we're going to have to start working for living. We can argue about whether that job at McDonald's will pay $6.00 or $8.00 an hour, but either way, it's not going to support us in the style to which we are accustomed.
Correct me if I am mistaken, but the recent SCIENCE article that demolished Pimental's position was peer-reviewed. Pimental's recent work is not only not peer-reviewed, it has obvious re-cycling of old data, serious examples of suppressed evidence and is clearly "political" and one-sided both in its premises and its conclusions. I do not know of a single notable biologist or chemist who supports Pimental's work. Do you?
Clearly, ethanol is not the only answer and may not even be a big part of the answer. But if ethanol for automobile (and even some aviation) fuel is such a bad idea, then why does it work so well in Brazil? Are Brazilians subject to different laws of physics and chemistry than we are?
FWIW, I'm only a mild ethanol skeptic. I think that's a rational position to be in, given that this is not a free market activity by any means. Not only is ethanol production subsidized in the metaphorical sense by fossil fuel infrastructure, it is also subsidized in the literal sense.
Thinking about it now, if ethanol is not cheap and easy to do, relying sole on inexpensive diesel and natural gas ... how big a subsidy are you going to need when those things become dear?
Maybe it will work, but IMO we should drop the subsidies and let it walk on its own.
Why feed our corn to pigs so that we eat more pork to clog up our arteries? If we are going to grow corn--and for political reasons it seems almost certain that we will continue to do so on a large scale--then why not use much of it for ethanol and biodiesel?
BTW, I am no great fan of corn. On my land I grow jerusalem artichokes and get the benefits of inulin as opposed to starch or sugar. O.K., I agree it is easier to make ethanol out of cane than out of anything else, but you can make ethanol out of most things that grow and that have both carbon and hydrogen in them. I'm a big fan of stich grass and may try a plot of that this spring.
With regard to the "different laws of physics" question, the answer is of course "no," but the reality is that they use sugar cane to produce ethanol, which provides a much higher EROI than corn. I think that's the main reason that it is so successful in Brazil.
But if ethanol for automobile (and even some aviation) fuel is such a bad idea, then why does it work so well in Brazil? Are Brazilians subject to different laws of physics and chemistry than we are?
No. They simply aren't dealing with a peak oil situation yet. They started making ethanol because sugar prices were low, not because they were running out of oil.
I think Brazil's situation is going to change. There are certainly some clouds on the horizon. As it is, sugar is at record highs:
Hoarding feared as sugar prices surge
Sugar prices hit sour note for foodmakers
Appetite for ethanol strains Brazilian cane millers
Agriculture (along with transportation) is our most oil-dependent industry. Farmers are already feeling the strain of high energy prices:
Costs draining farms
They aren't going to be able to grow enough ethanol to replace gasoline and diesel, and grow enough food for us.
Ethanol may have a place. Perhaps as aviation fuel, since there is no substitute for liquid fuel there.
But I really, really hope we don't try to use ethanol to replace oil on a widespread basis. One, it's not sustainable. Two, it would be a very, very bad thing, if Third World nations start growing ethanol for us when they should be growing food for themselves.
Relative to a pebble bed hydrogen reactor, this one is kindergarten.
And while I am exuding a bit of bile before bedtime, why not use electric vehicles with batteries that can be instantly removed and replaced by fresh ones, instead of slumping into a collective fit of angst about short range and all the delay of recharging electric vehicles? Your dashboard indicator shows lobat, you swish into the friendly local battery station and chunk-kachunk, a robot has removed your lobat and pushed in a full one, and off you go in 27 seconds flat. The local utility owns the battery.
And you have a weak heat engine on board to humbly sneak you into the battery station if you are too busy talking on your cell to see that lobat light.
I know farmers are strapped- I live with them. But who makes the tractors, and where do they get their capital? And doesn't capital do one thing as well as another? And who decides what it does?
No, the guy who is out to make money owns the battery and the charging-replacement station, and charges what it is worth for the service- just like the old gas station. That turns nuclear into transportation, and whether that is good or bad I have not the wisdom to know.
Before making assertions, it helps to check facts.
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=134033&Sn=BUSI&IssueID=28317
LONDON: Sugar is a star among commodity markets, with prices at 25-year peaks and possibly heading higher as investors see potential to divert more cane to make biofuel.
The Dubai international sugar conference last week heard a keynote speaker say a larger share of sugar cane in top grower Brazil will likely be used to make the biofuel ethanol instead of edible sugar in the next crop cycle.
Tom McNeill, senior partner of sugar brokerage and consultant Societe J Kingsman, said as much as 55 per cent of Brazilian cane could be allocated to ethanol in 2006/07 from 52.5pc in 2005/06, due to growing demand for the biofuel for use in "flex-fuel" cars in Brazil.
While traders attending the conference expressed scepticism over such a high share of cane being diverted to ethanol in 2006/07, they said sentiment that increased cane would be used for biofuel has been one of several factors driving up sugar prices to successive highs.
Raw sugar prices, which rose over 60pc last year, finished on Friday at a fresh 25-year high for the sixth day running on supply fears and investment fund buying, with analysts saying the market should punch to even higher ground this week.
In real terms, the price of sugar is far, far below where it was in 1950, far lower than 1900, much, much lower than 1850, and also much lower than in 1800.
Beware of business journalism. Sensationalism makes headlines. Few journalists took Econ 101, or if they did they flunked.
In regard to agricultural commodities, the EU alone each year produces a mountain of surplus sugar to go away with its mountains of surplus butter, surplus wheat, and ocean of surplus wine. Because of price supports, most agricultural products are produced with big surpluses in most years. Grain elevators so overflow with grain in the U.S. Midwest that thousands of tons are dumped out in the open, on the ground, because the grain elevators are full. With price supports above equilibrium price, we always and inevitably get surpluses.
To get a surplus of crude oil would be easy: Just put a price floor of $200 a barrel under it, and within a year there would be such a huge surplus that wells would be shutting down left and right.
Also, to creat a shortage of, say, gasoline, all you'd have to do is put a price ceiling of $1.00 a gallon on it. Results guaranteed--Econ 101 once again.
In regard to sugar, go to Zimbabwe, go to Jamaica, go anywhere in cane-growing countries, and what do you find? Idle labor, rusting machetes, land covered in weeds. The price of sugar has been kept down by the huge subsidies that have created huge surpluses. What the world needs now is much higher prices for sugar. Increased prices for ethanol would help. Possibly no single change in prices would more reduce malnutrition and poverty and unemployment in the third world than a doubling in both the price and the output of sugar.
IOW, agricultural products were a lot more expensive before the oil-powered "Green Revolution."
That is precisely why agriculture products - biofuels - cannot bail us out.
Go where cane is grown and cut. Talk to some workers. Visit a refinery. Or if you have no time to come into contact with the real world, then read a good textbook of economic history.
BTW the price of potable 100 proof rum in Tortola is about $4.00 a gallon (at retail, including bottle and taxes)--same as the price of a gallon of milk. Internal combustion engines run better on 160 proof ethanol than they do on 90 octane gasoline. With the price of crude at $70 for 42 gallons (which is how much a barrel of oil contains), ethanol for fuel needs no subsidies--regardless of whether it is made from cane, beets, corn, switchgrass, milo or whatever. Nevertheless, to help make the transition away from petroleum and to give incentives to build an infrastructure for E-85 a strong economic case can be made for ethanol subsidies (with a sunset provision).
In regard to Pimantel's work, there is no substitute for reading the original artile in SCIENCE. It is a free country. You are allowed to believe in cold fusion, the phlogiston theory of combustion, the nonreality of evolution, or any other belief you care to hold--including a belief in the validity of Pimentel's results. I value our freedom and respect your right to believe what you want to believe, but I also believe in the power of scientific methods to correct errors.
SCIENCE is a peer-reviewed publication. Where are Pimentel's peer-reviewed publications?
http://www.hcsugar.com/hcs.html
Doesn't exactly sound like preindustrial hand work to me.
This is cool, though:
Capital and energy intensive is not the only way to go with cane. China uses little energy and less capital. Jamaica and Cuba and other poor countries use little capital machinery and very little fossil fuel, because they cannot afford it. Brazil also uses labor intensive techniques.
Of Course in the U.S., where wages are very high, we will use little labor and much energy and much machinery. That is Econ 101 again.
I have intended to purchase sugar beet seed, grow and process it to make sugar, since sugar beet doesn't sting as much as bees and since I deem it a relevant skill to try. However, despite several hours of online search none of the many UK seed companies that sell for domestic use stock any sugar beet seeds. I guess I will have to approach one of the agribusiness suppliers or an industrial farm that grows it to get my seed.
But be not so hasty on biofuels. I agree they are very unlikely to bail us out BUT they could make a difference. If we do end up on the edge(s) we might bless their smallish contribution. I would specifically recommend biodiesel which I am pretty sure has a decent positive EROEI. Besides, we will need to make vegetable oils anyway in PCL (post collapse life) for food and other uses and you can low tech brew up biodiesel from that in no time.
Yes, food was much more expensive before the changes of the last hundred years or more. It will soon be again regardless of whether collapse happens. Learn to grow your own food, save your own seed, it will save money, you will feel better and begin to understand more, and it may well save your life.
"Raw sugar on the New York Board of Trade is at a 25-year high, while refined, or white, sugar in London is at a 15-year high."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11026140/
I think that states it well - at least for processes that involve fermentation and distillation in order to get ethanol.
There was something interesting the other day:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/01/successful_star.html
An aqueous phase reformer. Their demonstration model could run on virtually any form of sugar, but they could also use glycerine as a feedstock. In their process, they can turn 10 pounds of glycerol into either 3 pounds of alkane fuel gas or 1 pound of hydrogen gas.
In their demonstration system, they connected the thing to a 10Kw generator.
If successful, this type of thing can change EROEI calculations.
Why? Simply wait for OPEC will increase oil supply out of respect for Bush
How would that happen? "I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply. Use the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot."
Which means ETHANOL instead of conservation.
Wonder if this ties into the history of hard drinking Presidents?
Look, they want 'weaning' at the fed level? Allow business to use 179 to write down solar panels, wind towers and power control systems for said systems in one year.
They all come around.
The "powers that be" - they KNOW what's up. They may not be able to say it. They may not want to admit it. But they know.
Are you trying to tell me that I've read Twilight but nobody in the Administration has?
They know.
Are you trying to tell me that Washington doesn't know the real reason GM and Ford have failed is fuel efficiency, not health-care benefits?
They know.
Are you trying to tell me that a White House made up of a former Halliburton CEO who RAN THE WAR as Defense Secretary to save Saudi Oil Fields in 1991 and his mouthpiece who happens to entertain THE King Abdullah at his ranch in Crawford doesn't know? But that we somehow do? We are deluding ourselves.
Peak Oil is real...and everybody knows it.